Ottawa to Toronto the scenic route

I had the option of going back to Toronto today or stay an extra 24 hours and photograph the third and final instalment of Ottawa fashion week. I decided to return to Toronto to get a head start on looking for another job. While generally I'm not that career oriented being broke and the thought of moving (which costs money) is a great fire under the butt way of getting motivated. I photographed what I needed to in Ottawa. the Trive catwalk for FAB and the Andrew Majtenyi collection (the paid gigs).


Cat looking outside


The newlyweds...


"Katie's" Candy Store



Before dropping me off at the Westin to meet up with Andrew, Josie and Patrick we stopped by Katie's candy store to pick up some stuff. I noticed that they sold those ginger gummies, a candy Stacey and I horded and ate on the set of The Thing (prequel). Craft service had brought in a bag of it and I think we hovered around the food table looking for these things.


Katie at the Westin


James at the Westin


The Westin lobby

I arrived to the hotel early and sat in the lobby. Worked on the photo sifting while I waited. We didn't drive home right away. We stopped by the upstairs restaurant where we had the all you can eat breakfast. It was quite good. No oily scrambled eggs at this establishment. We piled food on our plates when one of the servers announced last call for food. I think a wheel barrel would have me get from the restaurant to the car. The eyes may be bigger than the stomach but as William says the cheapo (don't waste food gene) is all powerful. While we didn't have to pay extra for food that we didn't eat, Mom didn't raise a kid that would leave leftovers. You take it, you eat it, or take it to go but don't throw any food. This is especially true if the food is good and it was.

Andrew wanted to hike around (it had just snowed). Walking around muddy trails in dress shoes didn't really appeal to me or Josie. We ended up driving up to Late Meech anyway. To my relief it turned out to be more of a car ride than a hike in some forest.

Patrick, Andrew's fashion developer, came to Canada specifically for the show. We picked him up from the Ottawa airport on Friday and he was flying back later on in the late afternoon. Since we were going on this "hike" I figured we should take photos of Patrick in front of all that we could to prove to people back in England that he was in Canada. Grand vista views and backdrops that people like Enzo appreciate Canada.


The spider in front of the National Gallery


Quebec, a round about





Patrick and the chicken cars

So okay chicken cars are not something I would associate with visiting Canada (until now) but like any place there's the odd thing that one needs to get photos of. The US has the Payday chocolates bars, the Lifesaver holes, Randy's Doughnut sign (which is still on my list to see). London has incredible ice cream with flakey chocolate bars stuck in them, the London Eye, round red mailboxes, streets that are going in the other direction than ours, double decker buses, and labelled genetically modified food.


The Chicken signs up close


The menu associated with the chicken signs.


Patrick in "Canada"






Andrew and Patrick standing on a "Canadian" dock


Nothing says Canada like a picture of a fish.




The weird blue reflection


Patrick and the Canadian weird blue reflection.


Nice landscape type photo


Lake Meech


Stopping the car to look around at the lake and woods.






A cottage on a cliff


I tried some poutine at a branch in Toronto and wasn't that impressed.


Working on designs before leaving.


Construction work


The flying J sign near Napanee... for maybe the last time (N44 15.837 W76 58.054)




Downtown Belleville... it's kind of becoming a ghost town.


The Little Caesar pizza guy.


his cat companion

We started getting hungry around Belleville. It was there that Andrew thought about getting some seafood. Using the GPS we looked for the Lobster Trap supposedly located downtown. If you're using a GPS in Belleville be careful that the map corresponds to the street geography. There were times when the Garmin didn't quite match up and it's not because new streets were added recently.

We finally rolled by the address the GPS spat out only to find no Lobster Trap there. We concluded that it went out of business as a lot of store fronts were boarded up.


Smokehouse Blues - (N44 11.079 W77 23.689) the best smoked meat in all of Ontario

As luck would have it we passed by a smoked meat place on the way to the Lobster Trap that stuck in Andrew's head. We ended up going there when we discovered the seafood option was a no go. In the small parking lot in the back of the restaurant we got out of the car to be bombarded by the best smelling meat food odour ever. I was salivating before even getting to the front door.


Andrew sitting in front of the food we ordered.


Pulled pork sandwich

The pulled pork sandwich as shown above does not come with any sauce on it. This is a good thing. The BBQ sauces, there's more than one, are added separately by you. This is great as you can control the amount and type that go on the meat. No more soggy over saturated pulled pork sandwiches with crappy sauce.

There were two kinds to choose from today. A smoky Kansas city based sauce and a more tomato based sauce inspired by Texas. I really liked the K.C. sauce. The food just melts in your mouth. If you're ever in Belleville, you HAVE TO go to this place. Program the coordinates into your GPS NOW!!! (also note: If you're looking at the Google maps link, you may notice a Syd Silver instead of this smoked meat heaven - the Smokehouse Blues has only been there for two weeks)

They have good chicken wings as well.


On the way back home